From Sea to City

About

‘From the Sea to the City’ aims to join forces to reimagine the European stance on migration with cities and human rights at the center. With this vision we want to send a strong signal to the European institutions that we want to pursue a welcoming and human-rights based migration and refugee policy before Germany takes over the presidency of the EU Council in July 2020.
Welcoming refugees and migrants in our municipalities and cities is a chance to democratize Europe further from below: it is the cities that bear the brunt of managing migration, thus it is the cities that should also have a say in the European migration policy.

OUR DEMANDS

Our political demands are addressed to Mayors, representatives of European cities and EU representatives:

1. TAKE A COORDINATED ACTION TO STRENGTHEN AND PROMOTE EXISTING AND NEW INITIATIVES BETWEEN CITIES AND CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS ON EUROPEAN MIGRATION POLICY

We ask municipalities to cooperate in the launch of a European-wide alliance aimed at promoting and strengthening joint initiatives and existing and future actions between municipalities/cities, EU representatives, civil society organisations and other international networks to agree on the steps concerning how to collectively pursue a progressive European migration policy from below. The first step of this joint cooperation will be the constitution of a solidarity-based platform among all the above mentioned actors in order to agree on common objectives.

2. Ensure protection of migrants’ and refugees’ lives and needs in the COVID-19 crisis

Ensure that during COVID-19 crisis:
a) migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea can be rescued without any delay and can disembark in a safe harbour in the EU taking all necessary and urgent actions and positions against the closure of seaports and in favour of sea rescue.
b) migrants and refugees are fully protected by the COVID-19 emergency measures. Specifically, we call for refugees and migrants to have access to information on the pandemic in their own language, access to national, regional and municipal healthcare and services, to be safely housed, and for sufficient resources to be made available for each country.

3. Ensure an active role of cities and civil society organisations in the management of EU-funds

Demand an active role of cities, municipalities, civil society organisations and the “From the sea to the city” network in directly managing EU-funds concerning migration, more specifically having a voice on how they are distributed and managed at national and regional level.

4. Create safe arrivals and legal corridors to Europe

Create safe, efficient, continuous and legal corridors to Europe (“corridors of solidarity”) towards and across Europe by setting up a long-term comprehensive mechanism for arrival and reception with European municipalities at its center. This includes advocating for the immediate improvement of conditions – on the Greek islands in particular, and monitoring the situation in Turkey, and in Libya where migrants and refugees are illegally turned back.

5. Ensure the access to fundamental rights and dignity for migrants and refugees arriving to European cities, from the right to seek asylum, an access to the social and health care system, to adequate housing and decent working conditions

In many European cities, local administrations and civil society have implemented initiatives and measures to ensure the access to fundamental rights and dignity for migrants and refugees. These initiatives should be taken as a model to develop new coordinated policies at the EU and the regional level in order to implement more humane policies which improve migrant people’s access to fundamental rights.

Who we Are

This initiative is launched by the Consortium of the Conference “From the sea to the city”

It builds up from the 2018 created Palermo Charter Process Platform (PCPP) a broad activists platform, inspired by the freedom of international mobility of migrants declared in the Palermo Charter in 2015.

In cooperation with

THE CITY OF PALERMO

With the support of SCHÖPFLIN STIFTUNG

Blog

Consortium statements

On World Refugee Day, we call for a fundamental change in European migration policy

On the 20th of June, the World Refugee day, just a few days before Germany takes over the presidency of the EU Council, we are launching a network to take …